Plummer, a 34-year-old engineer with the Minnesota State Energy Office, was out for the evening with his wife on Oct. 15, the night that John McCain first introduced "Joe the Plumber" to the nation in the third presidential debate. He came home to the blinking light of telephone messages. "Hey, McCain brought you up," one caller said. "Hey, Tom Brokaw said Joe Plumber was the winner of the debate," another teased. The ribbing continued at work, among friends and family, and any time Plummer introduced himself to someone new. "It lasted for a good week after the election," says Plummer.

In the meantime, the real Joe the Plumber -- Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, of Holland, Ohio - was chatting with Katie Couric on the Today Show and signing with a Nashville public relations firm to handle interview requests and a possible country music deal. Despite his sudden fame, the real Joe Plumber remained coy about who he would vote for.

Our Joe Plummer is refreshingly upfront about his political views. "A couple people were telling me I should call up the Daily Show and say I'm Joe the Plumber and I'm voting for Obama," he says, laughing. "I guess I didn't work up the moxie to do so."